Weathered and worn stood against timeEach day another challengeEach sunset another day survivedThe course of the windEtched into the bark But still it standsA testament to tenacity

Good Morning Googler's

There are a few trees that sit very close to the coast of the Irish Sea here and they bear the scars of were they survive, the wind and sand can at times come up from the dunes with enough force to shape how they grow. But no matter what they are still standing and have simply adapted to their environment unlike ourselves who adapt our environment to suit us.

I apologise for being somewhat quiet over the last week or so but I have been taking time out, I need to get fit so that has began with running sessions and time at the gym. Add on top things are just busy, I hope to be able to spend some more timer here soon, have a wonderful Sunday :)﻿

Many people seem to have a problem making new friends on G+. G+ is definitely more of a network where you build new relationships, rather than one where you find your old friends on here. Throughout my time on G+ since I joined on August 19th, I have made so many new connections with people. As I wrote the other day (http://goo.gl/PPwZo), I have had problems in my life with making real life friends, but jumping head first into G+ has been something magical for me. I now have people to hangout with (http://goo.gl/HigCo), people who I aim to meet in real life, and now people I actually consider to be my friends. In this post I hope to help other people find the same magic on G+ as I have by sharing some of the things I did to find people.

1. Interact With People on Threads Surrounding Topics You Like: When I first started out on G+ the only person I knew was +Thomas Hawk who I'm happy dragged me to G+, so I went to his profile and looked for people interacting with him on his threads. Trying to jump into conversations and replying to people by +mentioning them will bring you into the conversation. After going back and forth with someone for a while you can decide if you want to circle them or not, check out their profile, see what they are like, see if they hangout, and if you like them, circle them. If they liked you the chances are they will circle you back.

2. Look at Who People You Like Follow: Once you have made a few connections with people and circled them on G+ go to one of their profiles and hover over the box that displays who they have in their circles on the right (Only appears if the profile publicly shows who they have in circles). On the upper right of the box it will say "View all", click on that and a larger box will load showing everyone in their circles they are publicly displaying (shown in screenshot below). By default everyone in this box is sorted by relevance and at the upper left you can change this to sort by first or last name (which I never do). Chances are the first people showing will already be in your circles, but if you scroll down there should be some who aren't. By hovering over their name a hover card will display showing how many people you have in common (profiles with private follower counts or more than 14,000 followers won't show who you have in common). People in common are those who you follow that publicly follow this individual. So when I see a large number, like 206 for +Rafal Makiela in the screenshot below, I tend to check them out. If you are new to G+ seeing a number around 3-5 people is probably enough to check someone out if you don't already have a lot of people circled yet. The more interesting people you circle, the more people you will have in common with someone along the same lines of interest. Repeating this tip alone can bring to you a nearly endless number of new people to circle.

3. Listen to Recommendations From Those You Follow: I don't suggest adding massive circle shares from friends, small ones are okay, but 500 people are too difficult to go through. Adding 500 people should take place slowly over a more than a month of interacting with people and making connections. I encourage circling people who are recommended individually by those who have opinions you trust. Like when someone shares a post of someone you haven't heard of who happens to sound interesting. Investigate their profile, see if you like them, and if you do, circle them!

4. Join Hangouts With Some New People: I don't recommend joining a hangout where you know absolutely no one, but if you see a hangout going on with a friend or two along with some people you don't know, join them. The chances are if they like them enough to invite them to their hangout, you might also like them too. I meet new people like this daily and I add them to my "People to Hangout With" circle so they will be invited to my hangouts.

5. Search For People By Topics: G+ has a bar near the top, it does a lot more than just help you navigate to people you already have circled. You can type in keywords like "photography" and search. By default you will be directed to a live stream of posts under the topic you searched for, you can look for interesting content being posted there, or you can click on the menu below your search entry that says "everything" and when it drops down select "People and pages". You will now have a list of both people and pages surrounding your search. As before, hovering over a name will bring up a hover card that can help you know if you have any people in common.

6. Check Out Who +1'd a Post You Found Interesting: By clicking on the lower right side of the post just above the comments where the icons for how many shares and +1's there are you will open the activity tray for the post. Once it is open, there will be two lists, the left one will show who has +1'd the post and the right one will show who's shared the post. Both lists will be sorted by relevance. Like before, hovering over a name will display the hover card that can help you see if you have anyone in common with a profile. If you see some people in common and they are pretty high up on the list, they are worth checking out to see if you will like to circle them.

7. Use Other Sites To Help Find People With Similar Interests: My favourite site for finding others with similar interests is "group.as" http://www.group.as/ You can find many people with similar interests organized into lists on there.

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